Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

554 Part 7: Language and Education
South Africa, is ‘demonstrating as well as reclaiming the power of the powerless’
(Bloch & Alexander, 2003: 93), an active participant in the multiplying
effort to ‘shift the balance of power in favour of those for whom ostensibly
the democratic transition was initiated’ (Bloch & Alexander, 2003: 117).
The pervasiveness of unequal power relations, and the role of policy
and ideology in furthering or transforming them, is a consistent theme
across the chapters in this volume, beginning from McGroarty’s introductory
overview and call for educators to take up the challenge of deconstructing
and reconstructing the language ideologies surrounding our
efforts. She emphasizes how language ideologies frame and infl uence our
language use in not always directly observable ways, and (following
Blommaert, 1999) how the more a linguistic ideology is reproduced across
time and institutions, the more likely it is to become normalized, that is
taken unquestioningly as normal and common sense, even while it may,
and invariably does, reinforce unequal power relationships across individuals
and groups. From Freirean-inspired critical literacy and critical
language awareness approaches ( Janks, Pennycook, Alim), to concerns
around inequitable access to and investment in languages/literacies/
modalities (Higgins, McKay, Norton, Street & Leung, Vaish & Towndrow),
to matters of unequal power relationships and linguistic capital in situations
of language contact and shift (Kamwangamalu, Reyes, Siegel), or
hierarchical perceptions and evaluations of different styles, registers and
varieties of language ( Jaspers, Kubota, LoBianco, Rymes) or asymmetrical
positionings of speakers (Duff, Kasper & Omori), there is a reiterated call
for educators to challenge – through word and deed, discourse and practice
– these power inequities and the language ideologies that uphold them,
wherever we encounter them.
‘Flow, Fixity and Fluidity’: Media of Biliteracy
CEMS is a dual-language program, offering instruction through the
medium of English in the Contemporary English Language Studies (CELS)
modules taught by Professors Ramani and Joseph and through the
medium of Sepedi in Multilingual Studies (MUST) modules taught now
by CEMS alumna Mapelo Tlowane and formerly by PhD student
Mamphago Modiba, herself recently appointed to a permanent position in
the University’s Department of Education. Students from other majors
may opt to take the CELS sequence as a minor, but students enrolled in the
CEMS degree follow a course of study consisting of six modules each
taught through the medium of English and of Sepedi. Further, as shown in
the classroom scene above, students make frequent, fl exible and fl uid use
of Sepedi in their English-medium classes (and vice versa).
Not shown in this excerpt, but evident in the classes and activities of
the program, the communicative repertoire on tap includes not only South